Review: #624
Title: The Scorch Trials
Series: The Maze Runner - 2nd book
Author: James Dashner
Read Before: no
Comments: The Scorch Trials begins immediately where The Maze Runner ended and unfortunately, if you were hoping for answers and revelations, you will need to sit through one more novel. This is the most disappointing aspect of The Scorch Trials, the fact that everything remains contrived and that the reader is left as in the dark as the characters, with no light at the end of the tunnel, makes this is a bloated read. For the next trial, Thomas and his group of Gladers have to make it across a desert and abandoned city, to a “safe haven” across the mountains where they are promised a cure. At least we are given a glimpse of the outside, and how the world was destroyed thanks to the abnormal sun flares. Somehow, The Scorch Trials ends up feeling even more contrived than the maze from the first novel, with encounters of zombie-liked characters, predictable clichés such as betrayals from supposedly friendly characters and one thing after another that the author wants to convey has some sort of special purpose behind it, but you suspect that it was just inserted there because it sounded cool and do not have a proper reason. All in all, The Scorch Trials felt like the author had a bunch of scenarios that he really liked and tried to string them together into a novel, it is that disjointed. The only saving grace is that you still hold out the hope that all will be answered in the next novel and that everything will finally be revealed. It’s not as obnoxious and dry as The Maze Runner, but it comes close, then again, there are worse novels out there.
Rating: 6.5/10